CHEMIKILLER, Evilspeak (2006, Autopsy Kitchen)

The skull:
What’s more evil than a collection of ghastly free fonts and a cheap-looking skull bleached to near-glowing by a succession of ineptly applied Photoshop filters? All that and a pentagram. The logo here looks like it took someone days to create while the rest of the art was seemingly dashed out in the 15 minutes somebody had left before he had to get down to the stop to catch the bus. The Antichrist’s passion is clearly not for the graphic arts.

The music:
This reminds me of some of the early Noise Records bands who teetered briefly on the fence separating power metal from early thrash. Think Running Wild’s earliest material, or the first couple Rage discs. The music is simple and largely derived from Judas Priest and Accept, but it’s played fast and with a grimy intensity and topped with vocals that aren’t exactly melodic, but aren’t atonal, either, and recall Wargasm’s Bob Mayo and another early Noise hero, Tom G. Warrior. Yes, Evilspeak is unabashedly retro, but it harkens back to a time and sound that no one else seems particularly interested in revisiting, at least not yet. Sadly, the primary mover in the band, guitarist/vocalist Ramrod, died in 2010 and this album is the last full length release from ChemiKiller. They were even from my neck of the woods and I never caught them live (although maybe because they were a studio project – I can’t really say for sure) but there’s enough good material here to suggest that better things were to come from this band.
— Friar Johnsen